The Americas and the Pacific Islands

Geography: Mesoamerica

• Bordered • Pacific Ocean to the West and Atlantic to the East • Desert to the north • Tropical rainforest to the east and south.

• Includes modern day Guatemala, Belize, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and southern Mexico

Early Civilizations

• Agriculture• Began around 8000 BCE • Maize cultivation began

around 7000 BCE• Spread south through South

America • Other crops: squash and

beans• No domesticated animals

• Hunting and gathering gradually faded away

• No agricultural tools like those of other early civilizations

• Civilization started in plateau regions

Olmec People (1200-400 BCE)• Built the first large settlements

• Found along the coast of the Gulf of Mexico

• Were able to grow two maize crops a year

• Created water drainage systems for urban areas

• Best know for their ability to sculpt• Large basalt rocks

• Culturally influenced the Mayan and Aztecs

Andean Region

• Geography:• Bordered by the Amazon

Rainforest in the East and Pacific Ocean in the West

• Present Day: Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador, Argentina, and Chile

• Frist Civilizations:• Caral (3100 BCE) – large urban areas • Contains several pyramid structures

that may have been used as religious centers.

• Chavín- (1200 BCE)• Created drainages systems,

domesticated the llamas• Create sculptures depicting plants and

animals

Early Civilizations in the Pacific • Early Civilizations begin to appear in the Pacific sometime

before 1500 BCE in the Philippines and New Guinea

• They slowly spread from island to island

• They had reached Tonga and Samoa by 1000 BCE

• Polynesians would not reach Hawaii until 300 CE, Easter Island 400 CE, and New Zealand 1350.